


King and Lionheart

by Lyncias



Series: Mission Song [1]
Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, M/M, also everyone dies, rest of the knights mentioned but its too brief so I'm didn't tag it, weird ass sci-fi au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 13:55:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11715744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyncias/pseuds/Lyncias
Summary: You're my king and I'm your lionheartInspired by the Of Monsters and Men song of the same title





	King and Lionheart

**Author's Note:**

> So I was at my college orientation yesterday and was bored during one of the presentations. Then I remembered this song and I was like "damn it would fit Izumi and Leo well" and so here we are. Also, this is the first time I wrote any Knights characters so please bear with me
> 
> This is a really weird sci-fi/futuristic dystopian/post-apocalyptic AU. The world isn't fleshed out whatsoever, but I kind of like it, so maybe I'll flesh it out later and write something set in the same world
> 
> Thank you for clicking and I hope you enjoy!!

The battlefield was always quiet right after a battle. Especially a battle of this magnitude. After one side admits defeat, before the dust settles and before the Mobile Reapers roll in, there would be a few minutes of silence.

Izumi stumbled among the rubbles and ruins created by the battle. Dust was obscuring his eyes and smothering him. He tripped, and when he looked down he found a body, as grey as the dust around him, staring blankly into the sky. It wasn't wearing an uniform. The only thing that signified the person's allegiance was a small red flower, clipped onto the shirt. He stepped over the body carefully.

The ground was littered with bodies and broken limbs and pieces of Automatons destroyed in the heat of the fight. Izumi searched the desolated landscape desperately.

"King!" He called out at the top of his lung. He coughed as he inhaled the dust, the thick debris seemed to have swallowed his call.

"King!" He called again to no avail. The only thing that replied him was the faint wails of the wounded soldiers. He was getting anxious. _"King!"_ He shouted into the void around him, stumbling left and right. His right side was numb with pain. His ears were still ringing because of the explosion. "Tsukinaga!" He hadn't called his first name in ages. He needed to find Leo. He needed to get him away from the battlefield before the Reapers arrive. As long as Leo was alive...

"Tsukinaga Leo!" Izumi called out in frustration. His wounds were burning. He felt his energy dripping out of him. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw small figure. He recognized Leo's bright, orange hair. He hurried over.

Leo was sitting on a large Automaton's blackened corpse. He was humming lowly something with his eyes closed, his head swaying to the notes only he could hear. He was holding a gun in his hand, and was drawing lines and circles into a patch of dusty ground. Hearing his voice, Leo turned and grinned at him. He had a few scratches on his face, and his clothes was torn. His gloves were coated in blood. His entire body was coated in blood. Izumi didn't know how much of it was his. He didn't want to ask.

"Sena," he called cheerily, "glad see to ya alive."

"You need to get out of here," Izumi said. He took a few steps forward and grabbed the hand that was holding the gun. Leo's body tensed.

"It's over."

"Over?" Izumi asked incredulously. "What do you mean? It's not over."

"There's no point in running." Leo said, shaking his head. He yanked his hand out of Izumi's grasp and returned to humming, and scrabbling on the ground with his gun. Even Izumi could tell he was just doing it so he had something to do with his hands. Izumi felt dizzy. He didn't know it was because he was angry with Leo Tsukinaga or it was because he had lost too much blood. Maybe it was both. He touched his right side and winced in pain. His hand came away red and wet. He wiped his hand on his pants—it was already covered in blood and was too dirty for anyone to notice anyway—and turned his gaze back to Leo.

Leo still had his eyes closed, but he stopped humming. "This is the end of our little rebellion," he suddenly said. Izumi opened his mouth to protest. "Did you hear?" Leo asked before Izumi could anything. Izumi fell quiet. He knew exactly what Leo was taking about. Of course he knew. He was there when the core members fell. He want to go search for them, the rest of his team, his companions, but the battlefield was too big, and the casualty too great. He didn't know if any of survived. He didn't know if soldiers even retrieved any of them.

"King, we have to go," Izumi said again. He knew he wouldn't be convincing Leo.

"It's too late." Leo shook his head. "I made a mistake. These men are dead because of me as much as because of the Automatons." Izumi fell silent. He remembered watching his friends disappearing in a burst of bright, burning light.

"Come sit with me." Leo smiled and patted the Automaton. Izumi sighed. Climbing onto the machinery's chest was difficult. Every breath he drew burned and his vision fuzzed. He glanced around. Dust was settling now. Everything was still as far as his vision could reach. In the distance, but much closer now, were the blinking blue eyes of the Reapers.

Izumi patted the dead Automaton. It must be wrong to feel so at peace, but as he sat there, on top of a machine that killed thousands of his men, with his impending doom ahead of him, he felt peacefulness he hadn't felt since he joined Leo's cause. Izumi knew that he had known this was a lost cause. He sighed again in annoyance.

The Reapers were drawing close now, close enough for them to hear faint buzzing noises. Leo picked up his gun and tossed it at one of the Reapers, but the Reapers were too far away. The gun found another target closer to them. It clang against the body of a black metal giant, then fell to the ground with a dull crash. Izumi imagined it must have landed on some sort of machinery.

Izumi took a deep breath. To him, whether their rebellion was a lost cause or not did not matter. All he wanted, and needed, to do was to get Leo out of there alive.

Leo turned to Izumi and looked him in the eyes. It was two deep pools of calm water. Izumi couldn't remember when was the last time anything made those water rippled. The Reapers were getting closer now. Not even the dust could obscure its buzzing and blue eyes. He turned back to the Reapers.

"Sena," Leo suddenly said, "let's go climb a mountain together sometimes." He did not turn to look at Izumi. He stared ahead, as if he was not facing his doom. Izumi could see ice and wind in Leo's eyes.

He remembered the last time they were on a mountain together. That was years ago now, when they first met. He was on a mission and his team was meant to find a mountain base where Leo was stationed.

He had three other kids on his team that day. They were all wearing protective gears, but icy snow still beat at their bodies. The wind was ready to pick them up and send them plummeting thousands of miles down any second. Izumi had always been confident in his physical abilities, but nature seemed to have made up its mind about tossing him into oblivion.

Leo was there, waiting for them. Like Izumi and his team, Leo wore protective gears that hid almost every inch of his body. He helped the other members of the team up and returned to help Izumi. He held out his hand to him, and, through the blinding snow and whiteness and howling wind, Izumi saw Leo's eyes. Then Leo smiled. Izumi didn't exactly saw the smile. The mask obscured all expressions, but Izumi knew it was a smile from the small wrinkles the muscle made from Leo's eyes. Izumi thought perhaps that was the moment he decided to pledge himself to Leo's cause.

Leo began humming again. Even over the loud noises, Izumi could still hear the tune. It was a familiar one, but for some reason he could not remember it. It wasn't one of Leo's originals. The tune opened a door Izumi had hidden to the corner of his mind. It tickled at his heart as if a feather was stroking it. Izumi frowned and clicked his tongue in annoyance.

Izumi thought of his companions. He knew why he had joined this hopeless crusade, but why did the others? Why did Ritsu, who could have enjoyed a life free of troubles, decide to be a part of this mess? Why did Arashi join them, forsaking everything he had? Why did Tsukasa show up at the door that stormy night, when he should be sitting in an enemy base, plotting their downfall? Izumi didn't know. He had always wanted to ask, but he never did. He was sure he would never find out. All of these answers had already turned to dust along with the only people that may answer them accurately.

The Reapers were close, so close. Izumi felt like he could sense the heat waves from the machines. "You don't have to stay here, King," he said, "no one will blame you."

"My concern is not the unsaid blame." Leo shook his head. He reached over and tapped Izumi's forehead a few times. He left a smear of blood. "These people died for my foolish fantasy. It's my own conscience that it my concern."

Izumi didn't say anything. He just stared at Leo.

"You don't have to stay with me." Leo shrugged and said. "You aren't responsible for this. You should go, get behind the lines before it's too late."

"Do you really think I would leave?" Izumi frowned and asked, annoyed by Leo's words. He waved his hand in front of Leo. The blood had reduced to a dark, dry stain. "It's too late for me too," Izumi said. "Unless you want to carry me to the line, King." _I'm not leaving without you._ But those words wedged themselves in Izumi's throat and he could not pronounce them correctly.

Leo didn't say anything at first. Then he laughed and extended his arms. Behind him the Reapers appeared through the dust. A long line of dark, looming figures. Behind them was a forlorn landscape devoid of any lives. Any wounded rebel soldiers that might have survived would be reduced to nothing along with the bodies.

"Well, Sena. You're about to be the luckiest person on this field today." Leo said as he raised his arms above his head. "You are about to witness the masterpiece of a genius. You will not believe the inspiration I am drawing from this! Sacrificed martyrs, murderous machines, the endless darkness the mankind is about to face!" Leo waved his hands like a fervent maestro conducting his most beloved symphony.

Then he started singing. Singing a song Izumi had never heard before. It was broken passages of notes, and, against a backdrop such as the one they were in, it was eerily beautiful. Izumi pitied the living and dead for never being able to hear such a song. He pitied the world for destroying such a masterpiece. He pitied those that would come after for not knowing such brilliance ever existed. One verse or two of Leo's masterpiece tickled Izumi's memory. He thought it sounded similar to the verse he was humming earlier. Leo turned to the Reapers and laughed.

"Come," he said to the Reapers. "I am not running. Killing us means a thousand other people just like us will rise." He turned to Izumi and held out his hand. "Sena," he called, "let's go to hell with dignity."

He jumped off of the Automaton. His leg wobbled and he almost fell to the ground. The wound was burning, but the rest of his body was cold. His eyes were bleary.

As he joined Leo's side, Izumi suddenly remembered. He remembered an abandoned base, hidden miles and miles under compacted earth and cement and ruins. The stale air that finally started to flow after more than a century of isolation. A room hidden deep within the base, stocked full of books and records they've only ever read about in small pamphlets of the rebels, remnants of a time when people could listen to the music they want without worrying about being taken away in their sleep. A record left on a table, as if the last person listening to it left so suddenly they didn't have time to return the disk to its case. The only song that survived the ages and how it filled both Izumi and Leo's minds with wonders. And a dance in the gloomy, musty air and a kiss neither had talked about since.

He took Leo's hand as the cold, blue eyes of the Reapers spotted them. The entire line halted. Two dying men stopped hundreds of machines built for massacres. They grinned at each other. The buzzing from the Reapers were deafening. The dust rose again, choking everything. Izumi felt his ears ringing.

Despite this all, he heard Leo. He heard him, clear and low, as if they were young again, whispering into each other's ears at midnight in a crowded, sleeping dormitory. "Izumi," Leo called. It was the first time Leo called his first name. Izumi imagined this would be the last time. "The next time we meet, let's go to dancing."

Izumi felt his throat tighten.

As the heat approached, he fumbled over his own words. "Of course," he finally shouted, "of course, Leo. Let's go dancing. Just the two of us."

When darkness finally envelop him, Izumi suddenly recalled a single line from the song he heard years ago, echoing on an empty chamber, a song he had shared with someone presently and with someone who had been dead for more than a century.

_As the world comes to an end, I'll be here to hold your hand, because you're my king and I'm your lionheart._


End file.
